


The art of lying and deceiving

by lialin1021



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pathological Lying, Read the notes carefully please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 04:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11433144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lialin1021/pseuds/lialin1021
Summary: Lying is a powerful tool of our mankind, one that everyone uses, yet at the same time we are taught that it is bad to do so. With that knowledge, we might expect someone to lie to us at many points in our lives, and we also expect them to know that they are doing something that they shouldn’t and feel ashamed or apologetic when their lies are exposed. We certainly do not expect to meet someone who lies just because they like to and because they, in fact, cannot help themselves.





	The art of lying and deceiving

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a **spin-off** to: [ See you next week, Junmyeon ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9595625%20)
> 
> I wrote this to explain why Jongdae acted the way he acted in the original story, so I can only recommend reading it before reading this one.  
> I’d also like to apologize to anyone who waited for this spin-off. The life happened and I also had to be in the right mental state to write this, I hope you will understand.
> 
>  **! Warning** : Read this story at your own risk. It is not a nice, happy story. Even though there are not depictions of any horrifying images, it could trigger very unpleasant feelings.
> 
> This is another story where I write about a mental illness some may not be familiar with or may not realize how deeply it can affect human life. I tried to approach this issue with caution and be as careful as I can to make it seem realistic with the experience and knowledge I possess. If you have any questions or observations, you can always talk to me in the comments, I will do my best to reply, or if you want to talk in private, you can find me on Twitter under the same name.  
> A big thank you goes to anyone who will read this and I hope you will like it. Kudos and comments are very much appreciated!

Jongdae’s first lie was a simple one that would get him out of trouble. He lied that he hadn’t broken a plate which his mother found shattered on the floor in their kitchen. He put the blame on his older brother. His mom believed him for some reason and his brother was the one who received a punishment. It took Jongdae some time to comprehend the situation as a child – because when he had lied he had done it because of being scared and wanting to avoid a penalty for his actions. It had never occurred to him that it could work and bring him some gain. That moment therefore also marked the first time he realized the power of lying.

Since then, he was slowly exploring how lying worked. It was rather confusing since sometimes his mother believed him right away whereas at other times he was punished without further examination of the situation. At the times of punishments, his mother explained to him how lying was bad and said that he should never do it again, otherwise the punishments would be even more severe. Little did she know that Jongdae did not possess the moral code that would have helped him to understand it – in his mind, his mother didn’t want to be deceived and made fool of so she hated the idea that he would lie to her. It was in her best interest to prohibit him from lying but for Jongdae, it wasn’t beneficial in any way to stop with it.

One day, he was sitting next to his dad and watching the news. There was a report about a teacher in a kindergarten who had inappropriately touched some children in her class. Jongdae didn’t understand the word inappropriate then, he was too young to know what it meant, but that was not important for him at that time. What caught his attention was that there were some interviews with the parents whose children went to the kindergarten – and those parents mostly talked about how they could not believe such a thing and how wrong it was. Jongdae became intrigued without grasping the situation fully – those adults could not believe it, but would his parents perhaps believe it if he told them about something similar? It seemed like a challenge. Like a game he would love to win.

Jongdae was sitting by the dining table, eating his breakfast when his mom came to him, lovingly patted his head and asked him if there was anything new in the kindergarten, if he made any new friends or learnt any new games. The last word reminded him of that news he had watched and he felt like taking up the challenge. When he said that the teacher had touched him the day before, his mother stiffened immediately. She turned to him and inquired in a shaky voice about where the teacher had touched him. Jongdae didn’t know what to answer so he just kept quiet and looked at his plate with a sad expression. That scared his mother probably even more. She grabbed his little shoulders and made him look at her. She said that it was a very serious matter and that he needed to tell her everything. Jongdae sat there, still not saying a word and started to fidget because he was nervous and scared that his mother would find out he was lying. His mother interpreted it as a sign of completely different emotions and quickly apologized, hugged him and whispered that he didn’t need to tell her more if it was hard for him. At that time, Jongdae suddenly remembered something. He slowly, with his child voice uttered three words that broke his mother’s heart: it was wrong. And that was how he got his first teacher fired.

~

Over time, Jongdae worked hard on perfecting his art of lying and deceiving. He practised his expressions in front of a mirror every day. At the same time, he observed other people and made notes about their behaviour in various situations. It also helped him realize how many people sucked at lying. For him, they were way too transparent and obvious. But their mistakes were extremely useful for Jongdae as he could learn from them, especially how to avoid them.

He soon acquired the ability to cry whenever he wanted and excellent control over his face muscles and voice. The physical aspects were not so hard to master for him, more difficult was the mental part. Keeping his story straight, the same with each person he talked to and memorizing all the lies he had told, those were the real challenges. He often found himself tangled up in all his fabrications, unable to get out. It made him mad, really mad that because of his one stupid mistake the others found out and reprimanded him. At the same time though, it gave him an enormous motivation to be better and not to get caught again.

He started writing his first diary in middle school. He made sure to write down every lie that could be brought up in the future and also the names of the people he lied to. Then, he would read it every night before going to sleep. That method appeared to be extremely effective and paid out immensely numerous times. It didn’t take long and Jongdae was scribbling various plans in his diary, perfecting every little detail of his lies.

Obviously, it made Jongdae very happy to lie and be successful at it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. That was why he lied even about the smallest things which wouldn’t bring him any kind of gain. For instance, when his mother asked him what he had eaten for lunch, he fabricated something completely different and watched with pleasure how she didn’t even pause and believed him without any doubt. Those small lies were his everyday joy, something he could look forward to. He lied to his parents, brother, classmates, teachers, to shop assistants and random people on the streets. Basically just about anybody he would talk to.

Luckily for him, only some of his smaller or not so big lies were discovered. They were those kinds of lies anybody would tell so nobody suspected that Jongdae’s approach to lying was entirely distinct and different from what would be called normal. The trust they had in him also wasn’t lost or even disrupted. He was never perceived as problematic or untrustworthy. That allowed him to cultivate his abilities even more and hide them from the rest of the world.

~

In high school, Jongdae developed a great love for movies and theatre. In terms of hobbies that could be revealed to the rest of the world, acting was one of the closest to lying. It was basically just convincing other people that you felt certain emotions and that you were a different person, with different habits, patterns of behaviour or characteristics. Only the best actors were able to do all these things and master them, of course, and those were the ones Jongdae admired, looked up to and learned from.

It was therefore only natural that he chose to be an actor. His parents were quite well off so there was no problem with enrolling in a private university to study art. After a lot of persuading, they also agreed to rent him his own small apartment. Jongdae could not imagine living with other strange people, and he wanted his privacy. He was an introvert and didn’t really enjoy the company of others, except for the times when they believed every lie he told them.

University meant a lot of new people that wanted to socialize and be friends with him. Even though he was not particularly fond of the idea of friendship, he definitely revelled in making up various personalities, facts about his life and experiences. It was like the university offered him an empty canvas to draw miscellaneous pictures on – and every picture could be true if he wanted it to be. Therefore, the first two years of university were simply the best time of his life.

That excitement didn’t last forever because people became familiar and everything fell into a routine, there was nothing new to make, nothing exciting to fabricate. He needed a change and he needed it quickly.

His plan was simple. In one class, he began to perform really poorly, receiving bad marks and evaluation for easy tests and assignments everybody else had no problem with. When he was visiting home, he voiced his worries about failing that class. His mother, carrying as always, comforted him and asked if he could think of any reason why he was failing the class. Jongdae wiped his tears away and whispered that he was scared that she would hate him forever if he told her the truth. It took his mother another couple of minutes of endless comforting and reassuring that nothing would ever change, no matter what. And Jongdae knew he could believe her.

He started his performance with admitting that he was gay. He didn’t care much about that, he had actually never experienced any romantic feelings whatsoever for anyone of any gender, and so sexuality didn’t mean anything to him. He just needed something shocking enough and something that couldn’t be made public. His mother was surprised, of course, but firmly squeezed his hand to show that nothing would change because of that. Jongdae squeezed her hand back and put on his best relieved expression. And then he continued. He told her his masterfully fabricated story about how his professor had expressed interest in him and they had started dating in secret. After some time, Jongdae hadn’t felt happy in the relationship and ended things, and that had been when the bad marks had started.

He begged his mother not to tell anyone, not to make any accusations and complaints at the university because they would fire the professor and he could probably never find another job after the revelation of his sexuality. It could also be very harmful to Jongdae himself since the society wasn’t really accepting when it came to homosexuality. His mother had to promise that she would only tell his father and keep quiet otherwise. And when Jongdae proposed the idea of changing schools, she agreed immediately.

~

Jongdae was aware that his second university would inevitably get boring for him as well. He enjoyed the excitement of meeting new people and creating new personalities while it lasted but once again found himself disappointed when everything began to feel mundane. The bigger problem than that was, however, that he had no plan how to escape – nothing that could work and not be painfully obvious.

He knew he needed a new challenge and one suddenly appeared itself out of nowhere. When he was calling with his mother one day, she told him that one of his cousins, Minseok, had started to work for an organization that helped people who were sexual addicts. Minseok studied to become a social worker and that was a perfect opportunity for him. And all of a sudden, it seemed like a perfect opportunity for Jongdae as well.

He started his extensive research on sexual addiction right away. The more he found, the more captivated he became. He didn’t really understand the concept though because he had never felt anything similar to sexual attraction or arousal, and it had never bothered him since he wasn’t interested in anything real or physical. That was why the challenge was even greater and more appealing to him since he had to create emotions about something he had never experienced.

When Jongdae felt like he was ready, all that was left to do was to somehow get to the group of sexual addicts. He knew that his newly found addiction had to appear real and that his parents had to be the ones to find out first. Other problem was that it had to be shocking for them, enough shocking that it would be their idea to sent him to the group, yet not too shocking so they wouldn’t insist on sending him to a therapist. A therapist was an unnecessary risk Jongdae wanted to avoid. Therapists were usually good at reading people and that scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t let anyone discover his true intentions and possibly reveal all the webs of lies he had created throughout his life.

An opportunity to shock his parents, one that seemed exactly appropriate, emerged when his older brother sent him a message that their parents were coming to the city to see him as a surprise, so he should better get everything in order. What a caring and helpful brother, Jongdae thought to himself and looked around his perfectly cleaned apartment with a glint in his eyes.

The plan was easy: he bought several condoms which he opened and filled with a white, self-made liquid that resembled sperm. He proceeded to scatter them at various places in the apartment, most of them next to the bed, other in the kitchen, bathroom, next to the dining table and one also in front of the cabinet in the hallway. He emptied one full bottle of lube into the toilet and put it on the nightstand. Then he took another one, used half of it to stain the sheets and after that threw it next to the bed to lie there together with the condoms.

Jongdae also took two of the vibrators he had bought, one he left lying on the ground and the second he put on his nightstand. All that was left to do then was to strew some clothes around, mess up the bed, get naked, lie down and wait. Like that, there was no need for another person to be there, the evidences were completely enough.

His parents had the spare keys and when they opened the door, Jongdae heard a loud scream. And there was another one when they found him naked in his bedroom. He woke up from his fake sleep, pretending drowsiness, and then opened his eyes wide in a feigned shock. If he had been able to, he would have taken a picture of his parents’ expressions. That was how proud his was of himself.

~

It took a lot of time to persuade his parents that he didn’t need a therapist, that he felt uncomfortable with just one strange person in a room who wouldn’t know anything about his real problems and feelings. That was a direct cue and it worked. His mother immediately suggested that he could visit Minseok’s meetings for sex addicts since there would be someone familiar and also lots of people who were going through the same thing. Jongdae acted reluctant at first but agreed when his parents begged him to at least try it. That was how he finally, finally after his hard work, got to the meetings he had dreamt about.

And he didn’t even have to wait for the first meeting to be over to deem it one of the best decisions of his life. There were so many different characters with various life issues and emotions, each of them talking and sharing the deepest worries and thoughts. It was like a heaven for Jongdae and he couldn’t get enough of all those observations. He started to write a special diary just for those meetings, recording everything down.

When he felt like he got to know the people, mostly men, there, he, for the first time, raised his hand to indicate that he wanted to talk. His cousin, Minseok, smiled proudly and motioned to him that he could start.

Jongdae spoke vaguely. He only talked about emotions and general experience, those that he had collected during the previous meetings. He enjoyed how he could mention one specific, particular emotion and instantly observe a reaction on someone without anyone else knowing that it had been a well measured, directed reference. He toyed with the people there, making them believe that he felt the same things, suffered in the same way, tried to get better as well, but also causing them, without intention, to be even more miserable by making them recall some of their emotions they had tried to get rid off by sharing them in preceding meetings.

The people there were his puppets. His sad, little, broken puppets that would believe anything, always with hope of healing and in need of understanding. He gave that to them in his specific way, and took what he hoped for and needed as well.

And on one chilly day, a new puppet appeared, and somehow, from the start, Jongdae was completely sure that it would become his favourite one.

~

Jongdae had experience with someone being interested in him. He had just never found it in him to care. That, however, changed when he met Junmyeon.

It was obvious to Jongdae how Junmyeon looked at him during the first meeting he attended. And that meant another, new and interesting challenge to work on. The fun and intriguing part was that Junmyeon could be provoked and toyed with but, for his own good, should never try to be active since he was a recovering sex addict. The whole flirting and provoking thing was an area Jongdae had never examined before and he was more than happy to do so.

He waited for the man outside after his first meeting, prepared to take the first step. He lighted a cigarette, which was a habit he picked up since it seemed to fit the image of someone who was trying to get out of a desperate, life-ruining situation. In his mind, it perfectly completed the character he was trying to portray.

Breathing out the cigarette smoke, he watched Junmyeon get out of the entrance. It was so simple, so freaking simple to get him hooked with just few words. Jongdae could see the inner fight within Junmyeon, the kind of inner fight he had heard being described numerous times by the others at the meetings. He took a long drag and dropped the ash off his cigarette. When Junmyeon’s inner fight ended with him walking away without a word, Jongdae smiled and knew that Junmyeon became his to play with.

He slowly prepared Junmyeon by meaningful glances during the meetings, yet nothing too obvious or provocative. He also continued the routine of waiting for him and Junmyeon also followed that little, exciting game, evidently waiting for it to happen after every meeting.

When Junmyeon seemed still intrigued and quite comfortable with those small encounters they had shared, Jongdae decided to move their relationship to the next level. The level he had been planning since the day of their first meeting. His plan was masterful, as always, and the best part about it was that Junmyeon had no idea at all.

It couldn’t have been easier to get Junmyeon to talk about his past which was something he had never done during the meetings. Jongdae took it as his tiny, satisfying victory, as well as the erection he had given Junmyeon. He had figured sexual stimulation would be the best way how to get Junmyeon feel restless and drive him almost mad and to a state where he would lose control over himself. A correct judgment on his part, of course. And everything else went spectacularly as well. His only worry was that during Junmyeon’s first visit at his apartment, he also found out that his cousin, Minseok, had tried to make Junmyeon stay away from him, obviously noticing the elder’s interest – but as long as Minseok didn’t find out about their special relationship, everything would be just fine.

The most exciting part of his plan came the following week. It was the part which was supposed to gain Junmyeon’s trust and also invoke such imaginations Junmyeon wouldn’t be able to get out of his head for weeks. Jongdae considered it to be his most perfect and masterful fake past story. The narration and every emotion during the speech were so on point, every Junmyeon’s reaction went as planned, and it was just so delightful and fulfilling.

Their special relationship was progressing more and more each weak and Jongdae saw and could feel how Junmyeon’s infatuation with him grew and how it was harder for him to ignore his sexual urges and needs (Jongdae just loved to see him squirm and try to hide his erection). He also seemed to be more trusting, and after a certain point even demanding. Not aggressively though, but it was more that obvious how he tried to make Jongdae a bigger part of his life and how he wanted more than one Saturday evening a week together in Jongdae’s apartment. However, he would never really push Jongdae because of his fear of being rejected and left alone once again.

Jongdae observed all that and noted every little development, every little shift. His study of Junmyeon and their relationship then took up almost a whole notebook, that many interesting and fascinating observations he had made.

There were ten pages left when Junmyeon told him he loved him and Jongdae answered as it was expected of him. Everything felt complete at that point. He tried to imagine what kind of new revelations and conclusions could come, and there were none he could think of. That meant only one thing: it was time to let Junmyeon go.

As he was packing all of his things, his eyes set on a dried flower from a bouquet Junmyeon had given him, which he had kept because he had seen it in a movie as a romantic, loving gesture. He had called his mother about coming back home an hour and a half ago, explaining that a guy in their group had made advances at him and when Jongdae had declined, he hadn’t taken it very well. Since the guy was something like a stalker, he knew where Jongdae lived and studied so it would be better for him to go home for a while and then change apartments, he had suggested and his mother had promptly agreed. Jongdae had also said that the guy might tell something else to Minseok and that they shouldn’t disagree with his version of the story because it would be better for the guy to continue in the group meetings to get better. As expected, her son was such a considerate person, his mother had wept and promised she would come for him as soon as he was packed.

Jongdae observed the dried flower for a few seconds, grabbed it and threw it into the trash, since there shouldn’t be any rubbish lying around because of the new tenants moving in.


End file.
